By DAVID HINCKLEY
Sometime in the next few days a small box of books will arrive on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Its contents: the first copies of a new translation of the Book of Mormon.
Head translator Phillip Yorlang, said he was glad to have the five-year project finished.
'It feels good,' he said. 'I just got my copy in the mail today.'
Earlier this year, the little-known language of Yapese became a significant name in the church curriculum department. A full translation of the Book of Mormon in Yapese pushed the total number of translations of the book up to 105.
For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Yap, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, the new translation means the end of a 25-year wait.
'There is a lot of excitement,' said Phillip Pulsipher, president of the Micronesia-Guam Mission.
The islanders of Yap live in one of the world's last remaining caste systems, where legal social status passed down from parents to children require low-caste individuals to serve the village chief. The LDS church has maintained a small but steady presence there since it arrived in 1978.
The island has two small LDS branches and only a handful of missionaries.
'I think the Yapese Book of Mormon will have a big impact,' Yorlang said.
The benefits of the translation will reach more people than just those living on Yap, there are over ten thousand more Yapese speakers who, like Yorlang, live away from the island.
'There are 17,000 Yapese speakers,' said Kai Anderson, a director in the Curriculum Department of the LDS Church.
Anderson said the LDS Church printed 500 copies in the first edition of the Yapese book. He also said of the 105 translations of the Book of Mormon, 32 have been excerpts. Yap received a full translation.
Yorlang said the project took about five years; he began the work in 1997, while still living on Yap. The translation was completed in 2001, after which the book began the rigorous proofreading and refining process.
According to Pulsipher, some people on Yap who helped with the translation already have complimentary copies. He said the first shipment for proselytizing is en route.
'I just hope that the people will accept it,' Yorlang said.